Change of Heart

by Jenna Bennett

  “Hurry!”

  He peered out, nervously shifting from one foot to the other.

  He looked horrible. Although not as horrible as he had the other morning, in his ratty jeans and sweatshirt. Or at least now he looked horrible in a different way.

  He was dressed with a semblance of care, in dark slacks and a crisp, striped dress shirt. His hair was clean and so were his hands; it was the face that looked ravaged.

  I was used to Tim being gorgeous, or as gorgeous as a gay man can look to a straight woman.

  He didn’t look gorgeous today. He looked every day of his thirty-some years, plus another decade thrown in for good measure. He looked like he hadn’t slept since the last time I’d seen him, with circles under his eyes that weren’t just dark, but that looked like the pits of hell. The eyes themselves were bloodshot, and there were lines carved into his face.

  “You look horrible,” I said.

  He immediately turned peevish. “You should talk. Have you been crying?”

  Yes. And since I didn’t want to talk about why—not to Tim—I said, “Are you going to kill me if I come inside?”

  “What do you think?”

  I made a decision. “I’m coming in.” I wanted to hear what he had to say, and he wasn’t going to talk to me standing on the doorstep. Besides, it was cold.

  Tim stepped aside and I crossed the threshold into the mud room.

  I’d been to Walker’s place once before, but it had been for a cookout in the summer, and I hadn’t spent much time inside. Enough to get a good look around, of course—I’m a realtor because I enjoy looking at other people’s houses—but I hadn’t been able to snoop too much, both because Walker was my boss, so it was unseemly, and because I was afraid someone might catch me.

  It looked much the way I remembered it. A big, sprawling mid-century ranch, with large open rooms, tall ceilings, and gleaming oak floors. Walker had excellent taste, so everything—furniture, paint colors, artwork—was exquisite.

  “Nice place,” I said, falling further and further behind as I looked around.

  “I’d rather be home,” Tim answered.

  Well, of course. I glanced at his back. “Why aren’t you?”

  He sent me a glare over his shoulder as he passed through the kitchen door. “You know why. You’re the one who told me the police had been there.”

  I followed, and looked around, at the marble counters and big butcher-block island, before I answered. “Did you kill Brian Armstrong?”

  He slammed the glass he’d just taken out of the cabinet down on the counter hard enough that I worried it would shatter, and put both hands on his hips to scowl at me.

  “Sorry,” I said, “but you did dump the body in Shelby Park, didn’t you? You can’t blame me for asking.”

  He must have seen my point of view, because he shrugged and started dishing beef stew out of the Tupperware container and into a bowl. He glanced up at me. “You want some of this?”

  “No, thank you. I have dinner plans.” I took my coat off, draped it over the nearest chair, and took a seat. If nothing else, he didn’t look like he planned to kill me anytime soon. Not unless he assumed Heidi’s stew was poisonous and would do me in. But just in case I was wrong, I did keep an eye on the big butcher knife on the counter.

  Tim smacked his lips, and I don’t think it was over the stew. “How is Rafael doing?”

  “Rafe’s fine,” I said. In fact, he was probably more than fine, over there on the other side of town with his stripper.

  “Yes,” Tim agreed with another approving murmur, “he certainly is.”

  I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. “So you’re telling me you didn’t kill Brian Armstrong?”

  “No,” Tim said.

  “No, you didn’t kill him?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m telling you.”

  I tensed as he picked up the big knife, but when he just used it to slice the hunk of bread into a couple of pieces, I relaxed again. “So you did kill Brian Armstrong?”

  “No,” Tim said. He put his bowl and the slices of bread on the table and took a seat across from at me.

  “But...” I stopped and shook my head. Never mind. “You either did or you didn’t. Which is it?”

  Tim hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said eventually.

  “How can you not know?” I mean, killing someone isn’t something that should slip someone’s mind. Is it?

  “I’m not sure,” Tim said.

  I watched as he dipped his spoon into the stew and tasted it. It was either too hot or too spicy, because he grimaced and blew on the spoon. “How can you not be sure?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Argh. “Let’s go back to the beginning. You had an appointment at Chaps on Friday night, right?”

  He glanced up at me. “How do you know about that?”

  “I put together your calendar page,” I said.

  “The one I shredded?”

  I nodded. He smirked, probably at the effort I’d gone to, and I added, a little defensively, “I wanted to know where you were.”

  There was a pause. “Do you know what kind of place Chaps is?” Tim asked eventually.

  “Gay bar,” I answered. “Leather.”

  He looked surprised, and I added, “I went there a couple of nights ago. With Rafe.”

  Tim put down the spoon to give me his full attention. “You took Rafael to Chaps?”

  In a manner of speaking. I nodded.

  “Oh,” Tim breathed, an unholy light in his baby-blue eyes, “I wish I could have been there to see that!”

  “It was... interesting.” In the moment, I’d been too relieved at Rafe’s sudden appearance to notice many of the other details, but the instant awareness in the faces and postures of the other men had been amusing in retrospect.

  Tim grinned. “I can imagine.”

  I let him bask in the fantasy for another moment, and then I gently yanked the conversation back on track. “You did go there on Friday, right? Someone told me you sat at the bar and that you looked like you were waiting for someone.”

  “Brian,” Tim said with a sigh. “He asked me to meet him.”

  “For a date?”

  “I assumed it was professional,” Tim said. “I wouldn’t have gone otherwise. I’m not into kink. Not on that level. A pair of handcuffs and a blindfold is one thing, but I don’t bottom for anyone who’s into inflicting pain.”

  Too much information. “Was Brian into inflicting pain?”

  “He was a dentist,” Tim said. And then he seemed to remember the food in front of him again, because he dipped his spoon back into the stew. I let him take a few bites before I asked my next question.

  “So was it professional? The date?”

  “I’m not sure,” Tim said.

  “Didn’t he show up?”

  “I think he did.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Yes,” Tim said. “I think I do.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  He nodded. “I’m pretty sure I did. And... no, it wasn’t professional.”

  “He was hitting on you?”

  “I think he was.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Tim said.

  I took a deep breath and held it, to keep from screaming at him. “Let’s talk about Saturday morning instead. When I saw you at the office, you were rinsing blood off your hands. And there was a big bloody handprint on your trunk. You’d just come from dumping Brian in Shelby Park, right?”

  Tim shuddered and pushed the bowl of soup away. “Yes.”

  “How did you end up with the body?”

  “He was there,” Tim said.

  “Where?”

  “Next to me.”

  “At Chaps?”

  He shook his head. “In bed.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “Your bed?”

  He nodded.

  “So you took him home with you? From Chaps?”r />
  “I don’t know,” Tim said, and rubbed his forehead. “I must have, I guess. I just... don’t remember.”

  “Well, how else could he have gotten there?”

  Tim shrugged and kept rubbing. I waited for him to say something else, but when he didn’t, I tried again. “So... he was next to you in bed? When?”

  “When I woke up. Early.”

  Yikes.

  “It was in the guest bedroom. I don’t remember going to bed there. I don’t remember bringing Brian home, either. I don’t know why I would have brought Brian home. I didn’t like him.”

  “Did he...” I hesitated. It was a delicate question, and I didn’t quite know how to phrase it. Furthermore, I didn’t know if I should ask. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  “No,” Tim said, glancing at me.

  “He didn’t—?”

  “If you’re asking if we had sex, no.”

  “Oh. No. I actually wanted to know whether he hurt you.”

  “Oh,” Tim said. “No. Not that, either.”

  “No bruises or anything?”

  He shook his head.

  I sat back on the chair, chewing on my lip and trying to make some sense of this.

  So Brian was into rough sex, but Tim wasn’t, and Brian had gone home with Tim, but Tim couldn’t remember it, and they hadn’t gotten around to either the sex or the rough stuff, but somehow Brian had ended up dead.

  “Did you kill him before he could... you know... hurt you?”

  Tim paled. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you remember stabbing him?”

  Tim shook his head, not just pale now, but a lovely shade of almost green.

  “All you remember is waking up, and he was there. Already dead.”

  He nodded.

  “Was there a knife?”

  “I tossed it in the river,” Tim said faintly.

  “Was it yours?”

  “From the butcher block in the kitchen.”

  Tamara Grimaldi’s CSI team had undoubtedly noticed that. I wondered why she hadn’t mentioned it to me.

  “Now you know why I can’t go home,” Tim said.

  Oh, yes. Because the police would arrest him for murder. And he wouldn’t be able to prove he didn’t do it. Because he probably did, even if he couldn’t remember it.

  “What about Beau?”

  Tim looked surprised. “Beau Riggins? What about him?”

  “Was he there?”

  “I should be so lucky,” Tim said. “Listen, if I could have taken Beau Riggins home, I’d have done it in a heartbeat, and to hell with Brian Armstrong. But he doesn’t swing my way.”

  “So he wasn’t there on Friday night.”

  Tim shook his head. “I don’t remember seeing him. But if you want to know, why don’t you just call and ask?”

  “He’s dead, too.”

  There was a beat. “Beau’s dead?”

  I nodded.

  “How?”

  “Suicide,” I said. And qualified it, “Maybe.”

  When he didn’t say anything, I elaborated a little. “A mixture of sleeping pills, ammonia, bleach, and drain cleaner.”

  Tim winced. “Jesus.”

  I nodded. “I don’t suppose you have an alibi for yesterday?”

  He looked at me as if I’d grown an extra head. “No.”

  “You’ve been here since Saturday?”

  He nodded. “I’ve spoken to Heidi on the phone a couple of times a day, but I haven’t seen anyone else.”

  So if Beau had been killed, Tim could have killed him. Or at least he couldn’t prove that he hadn’t. Just like with Brian.

  “Is there any chance that Beau could have killed Brian?” I asked.

  Tim looked at me.

  “I was just thinking... if the three of you went to your house, and Beau killed Brian, and then left him there...”

  He didn’t say anything. No denial, but no confirmation, either. If he’d been guilty of murder, wouldn’t he have grabbed the chance to pin the blame on Beau?

  “I should go,” I said. And I admit it, when I got to my feet, my knees were a little wobbly. If he’d been stringing me along this whole time, and he knew exactly what had happened to both Brian and Beau, because he had killed them both, now was the time when he’d have to kill me too, before I could leave and tell anyone where he was. “Just... stay here, OK? I won’t tell anyone where you are.”

  He looked at me.

  “I won’t. I swear.” I’d just call Grimaldi and tell her what he’d told me. And deal with her trying to browbeat his location out of me.

  Or maybe it would be better not to tell her. Maybe I should just give it some more thought first, and try to come up with a good scenario that explained what had happened. I could wait until tomorrow to call her. I had things to do tonight anyway.

  I grabbed my coat off the back of the chair. “Just stay here a few more days. I’ll try to figure out what’s going on.”

  He peered up at me. “Why?”

  “I don’t want you going to jail for something you didn’t do,” I said. “Rafe’s been to prison, and he said you wouldn’t like it.”

  “If they have men like Rafael there, I wouldn’t mind,” Tim informed me. “I’ll be your boyfriend’s bitch anytime, darling.”

  Gack.

  “I’ll make sure he knows,” I said, and on that note, I made my way to the door and out. Tim didn’t make any move to stop me, just shut and locked the door as soon as I was outside. I got in the car and drove away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Aislynn and Kylie’s new house used to be one of Tim’s listings. It was located in Edgefield, just a few blocks from the office, and half mile or so from my apartment, as the crow flies. It wasn’t very far from Erin Armstrong’s house on Forrest, either.

  I got there at six o’clock sharp, after driving past my own apartment on the way. The lights weren’t on upstairs, and there was no sign of Rafe’s Harley on the street. I didn’t stop, of course.

  The Victorian was redolent of tomato sauce and spices, and it looked great. They’d managed to unpack all their boxes in the couple of weeks since they’d moved in, and the place looked like they’d always lived there.

  “We love it here!” Aislynn confided as she showed me around. “So much better than that Stepford place you showed us.”

  The Stepford place was a planned community on the south side of town. Very pristine and orderly, and closer to Sara Beth’s than we were now. The left-brained Kylie would probably have been quite happy there, but Aislynn was more of a free spirit.

  “It looks fantastic.” I turned away from the big king-sized bed in the master bedroom. “How’s Kylie doing? Any problems after the accident?”

  Back before Christmas, someone had fiddled with the brakes on Kylie’s blue Volvo, thinking it was mine, and she and Aislynn had crashed on their way home from making the offer on the house. Aislynn had walked away mostly unscathed, with a few cuts and bruises from the seatbelt and airbag, but Kylie had had broken ribs and a concussion and had spent a few days in the hospital.

  Aislynn shook her head. Her multiple earrings danced. “She’s fine. Great. You saw her.”

  I had, when I first walked in. And she’d looked just like she used to, before the accident. A lot like me, with shoulder-length blonde hair—an inch or two shorter and a bit lighter than mine—and about my height and size.

  “I’m glad you guys are happy with the house.”

  “We’re thrilled,” Aislynn assured me. “Couldn’t be better.”

  Good. At least something had gone right lately.

  The food was good too, and I found I had recovered enough of my appetite to do it justice. And after dinner we curled up in the sofa with a glass of wine each to watch a movie.

  They’d chosen the most recent James Bond action thriller, which was fine with me. When you’re a lesbian, I guess a straight romantic comedy doesn’t really blow your skirt up, and in the frame of mi
nd I was, I had no desire to watch one. Someone else’s happy ending was likely to set me off bawling.

  Not that watching 007 work his way through the usual array of gorgeous Bond girls made me feel much better, either.

  I must have ground my teeth loud enough for Kylie to hear, because halfway through the movie she turned to me. “Everything OK?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Don’t you like James Bond?”

  Handsome, larger than life, and a womanizer? “What’s not to like?”

  “It’s just that you’re grinding your teeth,” Kylie said.

  “Boyfriend trouble.”

  “Ah.” She exchanged a glance with Aislynn, who said, “I told her.”

  “Told me what?”

  “That’s why we’re gay.”

  Because all men are swine. I remembered.

  “I don’t think I have it in me to be gay,” I said.

  “That’s OK.” Kylie patted my hand. “It isn’t for everyone.”

  We went back to watching the movie.

  They offered me the use of the couch, and I guess maybe I should have taken them up on it. But I hadn’t brought a change of clothes, and I hadn’t had that much to drink. The apartment was only a few blocks away. I figured I could make it there in one piece. And it was late enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about sitting around waiting for Rafe to show up—or not—when I got home. I could just fall into bed, and into oblivion.

  So I said thank you and good night, and made my way out to the Volvo. And drove carefully through the dark streets in the direction of home.

  I noticed the car behind me the first time I made a turn. With the second turn, I noticed it again. With the third, I was pretty sure it was following me.

  By the time I made the fourth turn, my heart was beating faster.

  Not all of it was terror. It could just be Rafe behind me, tracking me down because I hadn’t come home. And if so, the terror was more of an anger-fueled excitement.

  Although it was definitely a car behind me, not a motorcycle. Two headlights instead of one. He had borrowed a Town Car from Wendell a couple of times before, though. He could have done so again. Or he could be driving Lantana’s white Toyota.